Текст книги "All the Paths of Shadow"

Автор книги: Frank Tuttle

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“How nice of you to drop by, Captain,” said Meralda, through a forced smile. “My days are full of surprises.”

The captain muttered to his men, and they flanked him and hurried past. Meralda grinned at the thought of the penswifts arguing with the captain’s grim-faced lieutenants.

The captain came puffing to a halt. Meralda stopped as well, noting with satisfaction that the penswifts had been shouted to a dead halt some distance behind.

Meralda blinked away a row of dancing bright spots, and saw at last the troubled set of the captain’s face.

“What has happened?” she asked, in a whisper.

“Alons,” said the captain. “Robbed.”

Meralda went wide-eyed.

“Robbed?” she said. “Of what?”

“Their bloody crown jewels, of course,” said the captain. “The Mountain Tears. Right out of the east wing safe room. The locked and guarded east room safe room.” The captain took a deep breath, and glanced about before continuing. “The Alon queen was talking about leaving the Accords when I left,” he said. “We’ve got to find the Tears, Thaumaturge,” he said. “Got to find them soon.”

Meralda stared. We?

“Yvin thinks the thieves used sorcery,” replied the captain. “He told me to find you and fetch you,” he said. “Shall we go?”

“Oh, why not?” said Meralda. “I’ve got latches falling off the Tower, rumors of haunts, fifteen days until Commencement. Certainly, let’s go chase down jewel thieves.” She whirled. “We’ve been found and fetched, gentlemen,” she said, to Kervis and Tervis. “We’re done here, for today.”

She whirled again, and the captain shook his head. “I’m sorry about this, Thaumaturge,” he said. “But when you see how the Tears were guarded and stored, I think you’ll agree sorcery may well have been involved.”

Meralda sighed. “I’m sorry, Captain. I know you didn’t run all the way here to ruin my afternoon.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “When this is all over, let’s both retire, shall we?”

The captain barked a short laugh. “Soldiers and mages don’t retire, Thaumaturge,” he said. “We just die quietly of over work.”

He turned, and stamped back toward the wall. Meralda motioned the Bellringers to follow, and fell wearily into step behind him.

Chapter Nine

The palace was quiet. Guards hurried to and fro, staff darted and dodged among them, somber-faced court officials popped in and out of doors. Everywhere, voices were muted, doors were closed softly, and orders were given in near-whispers. And no one, no one at all, was smiling.

Meralda hurried through the palace at the captain’s side. He chose a route intended to avoid the more public areas. Meralda knew the Alons were housed in the east wing guest halls, and the safe room was on the third floor, but she’d never seen many of the hushed corridors and dim, narrow passages she passed through with the captain.

Meralda’s Sight lingered, and she had to look away from a gas lamp lest she see afterimages of the face from the park dancing in the flame. “Vonashon, empalos, endera,”came the words, over and over. Meralda remembered just enough from her year of Old Kingdom to translate them.

Walk warily, walk swiftly, walk away.

A storybook warning,mused Meralda. How quaint.

The captain halted, banged three times on a door so old its face was blacked with coal soot, and motioned Meralda through as it was opened from the other side. “Nearly there,” he said, as Meralda passed. “But don’t expect a warm welcome from our Alon brethren.”

Meralda nodded. “I won’t,” she said, and she saw mad eyes wink in a gas lamp’s flame and put her gaze quickly back to the plain oak floor.

Tervis and Kervis tromped behind, exchanging short bursts of whispers at each portrait or Historical Society placard. “The Moon Room,” she heard Tervis whisper, as the party passed a barred and bolted door. “That’s where Mad King Foon thought he saw the vampire!”

She heard Kervis pause at the door. “Been barred up ever since,” he said, and Meralda could almost see his sudden grin. “What if I knocked, little brother?”

“What if I yanked up your boots and boxed your ears?” asked the captain, casually. The Bellringers fell back into step.

The floors went from threadbare rugs to polished hardwood and then to newly-laid carpet. After a dozen corridors and three sets of stairs, Meralda rounded a corner to find a foursome of Alon copperheads-wearing their namesake blunt-topped copper helmets, no less-facing her. The copperheads flanked a wide set of black oak double doors.

“We’re back,” gruffed the captain.

“You may pass,” said one of the copperheads, as the others drew back the doors.

Meralda, the captain, and the Bellringers stepped through, and Meralda realized that, by law, she was now on Alon soil.

Angry Alon soil, at that.

A short march down a straight corridor, and a turn, and the party faced a dead-end hall and yet another door. The door stood open, dimly lit from within by flickering candlelight, and flanked by another pair of glaring copperheads.

“The safe room?” asked Meralda.

“The safe room,” said the captain. He stopped. “Would it be best if you went in alone?”

“It would,” said Meralda. Notthat it really matters,she thought. She had no spells prepared, no wands charged, her second sight was all but useless, and her staff just earthed an errant major spellwork. She couldn’t see a barrel-full of ward spells if it was lit with torches and marked with a placard.

But here I am.Meralda remembered something Shingvere had said, years ago. “Sometimes a piercing glare and a few nonsense words are all the magic you really need.”

Good,she thought. Because that’s really all I have.

“I’ll call you in a moment, Captain,” she said. “Tervis, I may need my bag later.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Tervis, who set it down on the floor.

Meralda nodded to the Alon guards and marched into the safe room.

It reminded her instantly of her dorm room at the college. It had bare walls, a bare floor, a low, bare ceiling. It was about the same size, as well. Just large enough for five paces from one wall to the next.

Meralda stood in the middle of the safe room and turned in a slow circle. The only door was open behind her. To her left, the wall was fronted by a plain wood table, on which burned a five-tiered candelabrum. Otherwise, the table, which took up nearly the length of the wall, was empty.

Before the table sat a chair. It too was plain and none too new. One of the legs had been replaced with lighter wood than the rest.

Centered on the far wall, directly across from the door, was a painting. The frame was on hidden hinges and had been left open, so Meralda could only see the back of the canvas and frame. Behind the painting was a steel wall safe, its door perhaps two feet high and just as wide.

The safe door was open. The safe, itself, was empty.

And that was all. A table, a chair, an open safe, a missing crown jewel, a black eye for Tirlin.

What did they want her to do?

Meralda bit her lip. All right,she thought. What can I do that the guards and the Watch cannot?

“Captain,” she said.

“Thaumaturge?” replied the captain, poking his head in the door.

“You said the jewel box was found smashed on the floor,” she replied. “Where is it?”

The captain spoke to the copperheads, then came inside, shaking his head. “The Alon wizards took it,” he said. “Right after I came for you. Claimed they were going to use it to, and I quote, ‘track down the Tirlish conjurer who dared steal from our queen’.”

Meralda bit back an Angis-word.

“It’s their country, in here,” whispered the captain. “We’re being allowed inside only as a courtesy, and that isn’t going to last much longer, judging by the shouting and the fist waving I saw before I left.” He paused. “Meralda, do you see anything? Anything at all?”

“Nothing. An empty room. Guarded, you said, at all times.”

The captain nodded. “Our Alon friends tell us the safe was undisturbed at the room check this morning,” he said. “When four of them opened the door for the afternoon check, though, they found the safe open, the box smashed, and the Tears gone. No one had been in or out.”

“Do you believe that, Captain?” asked Meralda.

The captain sighed. “I do,” he said. “Copperheads aren’t my favorite people, but the way they’ve got their guard rotations arranged you’d need to have twenty-two people in cahoots, just to get these doors open. You might find one Alon willing to betray clan and queen, but twenty-two? From different clans?” He snorted. “Impossible.”

Meralda stared at the empty safe. It was perhaps two feet deep. She could see all the way to the back, though it was in shadow.

“Nevertheless,” she said, stepping toward the safe. “It is empty.”

Voices rose up, outside the safe room, Alon, by the accent. Meralda heard Kervis tell someone, “The thaumaturge is working now, you’ll need to wait a moment.”

Working. Meralda touched the cold metal of the safe door, swung it nearly shut so she could see its face.

Centered on the safe door was a knurled round dial. Old Kingdom numerals were etched along the edge of the dial, counting clockwise from zero to ninety-nine. A down-pointing arrow engraved in the face of the safe pointed to the dial, which now read fifty-six. Meralda recognized that as the last number of the safe’s combination, and wondered who had been so careless as to leave the dial set there.

The safe presented no other features, save for the lion’s head emblem of Oaken Lock Works stamped at the bottom.

Meralda stepped back, and swung the painting closed, and there, in the flickering candlelight, Tim the Horsehead grinned back at her.

He’d have had no trouble with this,thought Meralda. A flash of light, a muffled shout, and the thief would be dragged, kicking and screaming, all the way back to the safe room, Tears in hand, while Tim gloated and munched hay.

Meralda sighed.

“Captain,” she said. “Please step outside.”

“Of course.” The captain grinned. “I knew you’d think of something.”

He turned and walked away.

Meralda closed her eyes, and took five long deep breaths, and opened her eyes again. “Sight,” she whispered, struggling to see past her ordinary vision. “Sight, Sight, Sight.”

Bare white walls, a painting, bare cold floor.

“Sight,” hissed Meralda. Her eyes began to water and sting.

“Sight,” she whispered.

Nothing. Nothing at all. No hint of magic, no trace of subtle spells.

I must See!

Sight rose up, just for an instant, and lit the safe room with lines of fire. Tiny glows and bursts of radiance sprang up along every edge, danced on the every plane, showered cold fire from the serrations set into the safe’s dial. Meralda shifted her gaze toward the shadowed rear of the empty safe, and her Sight went white, as though she had looked into the noonday sun. Then it was gone, leaving her blinking and half-blind and with no idea of what she had seen.

“Did you see anything?” asked the captain, from the door.

Meralda took in a breath, and wiped her eyes before turning.

“I assume this door will be locked, when we leave,” she said.

The copperheads, who both stood just outside the door, nodded.

“You will continue to guard it?” asked Meralda.

“Until ordered otherwise, aye,” said the rightmost. “Ordered by our queen,” added the other, with a glare.

Meralda lifted her staff, held it horizontally out before her, and silently mouthed a very rude Angis-word.

The glaring copperhead, she noted with satisfaction, drew away from the door in a quick backward shuffle. “I’m done here, Captain,” said Meralda. “Let’s go back to Tirlin, shall we?”

“Gladly,” said the captain, who turned on his heel. Meralda brushed past the copperheads, and the Bellringers fell in step behind her.

Meralda folded the king’s summons until it was too small to fold again, and dropped it in the trash bin by her desk.

Mug, who sat basking in the late afternoon sun streaming from Goboy’s scrying mirror, saw, and laughed.

“If Fromarch was here, he’d have a conniption fit,” he said.

Meralda shrugged. “I saw him do the same thing, more than once. I’m tired of being summoned, today. Enough.” She stretched and yawned. “All he’ll do is ask me if I’ve found the Tears yet. Does he really think I might say ‘Why yes, I found them hours ago, must have slipped my mind, isn’t it amazing how daft I can be’?”

Mug chuckled. “Our king thinks a wizard stole them, so naturally he also thinks said wizard may have mentioned his motive and methods to you in the course of idle conversation,” he said. “What about that, mistress? Do you think sorcery was involved?”

Meralda sighed. “It’s easy enough to look at the situation, see the Tears stolen from an impenetrable safe room, and say ‘Oh well, the thieves used magic’.” Meralda lifted an eyebrow. “Very well, then,” she said. “Tell me. What sort of magic? Used in what manner?”

Mug shrugged with a flurry of leaves. “The same kind of magic someone used to hide spells throughout the palace,” he said. “One is even led to speculate that an entirely new brand of thaumaturgy is at work here. Hmm.” Mug cast all his eyes toward the ceiling. “What recently arrived group of mysterious foreigners might we be led to consider?”

Meralda thought of Que-long’s open, easy smile, and she shook her head. “I can’t believe the Hang sent a fleet across the Great Sea just to pilfer the odd jewel box,” she said.

“Indeed,” replied Mug. “Why, pray tell, did they send their fleet at all? Have they offered any reason for their visit?”

“The captain tells me they have a reason, but they are waiting for the Accords to begin before announcing it,” said Meralda. She glared. “And that, Mugglewort Ovis, is a state secret. Understood?”

“Understood,” said Mug. “Still, though. You must admit suspicion of the Hang is a perfectly reasonable attitude.” Mug swung eyes toward Meralda. “You rather like the Hang, don’t you?”

I do,thought Meralda, surprised at the realization. All these years, thinking them faraway monsters. But they seem so genuinely nice.

“Consider,” said Mug. “Isn’t muddying your judgment with fondness just as dangerous as basing it on fear?” Mug paused. “The Hang are well-spoken and polite, I’ll grant. But that doesn’t mean they’re angels.”

“You sound like Shingvere.”

“That may well be because we’re both right,” said Mug. “Unless you know something I don’t. And, given the complete lack of attention certain thaumaturges, the guard, and the watch are giving the Hang, I suspect you do.”

Meralda shrugged. “It’s knowledge, I suppose, but only indirectly,” she said. “But according to the captain, Yvin has ordered all involved to treat any evidence that the Hang were party to the theft as evidence planted by the real thieves.”

Mug blinked, with all his eyes. “Yvin said that?”

“He did,” said Meralda. “He’s also ordered the court to deny any theft has occurred.”

“What about the Alons?” asked Mug. “Did he order them to smile and think happy thoughts, too?”

“Begged is a better term, I think,” said Meralda. “They’ll talk, of course, if the Tears aren’t returned. Soon.”

“Alons? Talk?” Mug made a snorting sound. “They’ll riot, is what they’ll do,” he added, “just before they pull out of the Accords.”

Meralda nodded. He’s right,she thought, imagining a thousand wild-eyed, bearded Alons raging down Fleethorse with a greater fury than they displayed at any football game. For some reason, she thought of the lone traffic master at Kemp trying to hold them back with his white glove and silver whistle. “We can’t let it come to that,” she said, rubbing her temples. “But how do we stop it?”

The scrying mirror flickered, losing its hold on the darkening, red-streaked sky. Meralda patted the mirror’s frame. The image steadied, and Meralda fought back a yawn and rose to her feet.

“Ah,” said Mug. “A bit of mage-like pacing.”

Meralda ignored him and began to pace, hands clasped behind her back, mouth set in a frown. She paced to Phillitrep’s Calculating Engine, turned, and returned to her desk before starting again.

“Let’s forget the how of the theft, for a moment,” she said. “Let’s talk about the why.”

“Why, what?”

“Why steal the Tears? Really. What do you do with them, after you magic them out of the safe room?”

“The Tears are worth a fortune, are they not?” asked Mug, with a rustling of fronds.

“As long as they are the crown jewels of Alonya, yes, they are,” said Meralda. “But steal them from the queen’s person, and what do you have?”

Mug pretended to whistle. “A hundred thousand furious Alons bearing down on you with swords,” he said.

“Exactly,” said Meralda. “You couldn’t sell the Tears to anyone who could afford them.”

“So remove the jewels, and melt down the settings,” replied Mug.

“And you have a few pennyweights of gold, a bit less silver, and a sack of gems known to every jeweler in the Realms,” said Meralda. “As a theft, stealing the Tears just doesn’t seem worth the trouble.”

“But as a political maneuver, it works beautifully,” said Mug. “Anger the Alons. Break up the Accords. Cast suspicion on the Hang. Sully the good name of Tirlin.” His eyes all converged on Meralda. “Forget the Hang,” said Mug. “Let’s start blaming the Vonats.”

“They aren’t even here,” said Meralda.

“They haven’t paraded through town, no,” said Mug. “But I’ll bet they’re here, all the same.”

Meralda halted, hands on the back of her chair.

“Well,” she said. “If I’m forbidden to consider the Hang, I suppose a Vonat will do,” she said. “Though, of course, the who and why is not nearly so important at the moment as the where.”

“Agreed,” said Mug. He tossed his leaves. “Let’s assume the guard and the Watch are pursuing every mundane means at the kingdom’s disposal,” he said. “What can we do that they can’t?”

Meralda frowned. “My Sight won’t be of any use for a day or two,” she said. “And what I saw in the safe room told me nothing.”

Mug considered this. “You saw no trace of recent spellworks,” he said.

“I saw the coronal discharges from the metal of the safe,” she said. “And the room showed the usual arcane buildup any old structure displays.”

“Hmm.” Mug brought eyes to bear on Meralda. “Doesn’t that strike you as a little odd?” he asked. “After all, didn’t the Alon wizards lay some sort of wards on their own crown jewels?”

“I asked,” she said. “According to the captain, the Alons laid no wards. It’s all that clan feuding they’re so fond of. Red Mawb and Dorn Mukirk’s clans have been at it for fifty years, with neither side having the courtesy to surrender or die. Because of the feud, the Alon queen forbade them to enter the safe room, for fear they’d ensorcel the place to dust in a show of inept one-upmanship. Imbeciles.”

“I see.” Mug imitated the sound of fingers drumming on a tabletop. “And they have the smashed jewel box, arguably the best clue left at the scene. How convenient for the thieves.”

Meralda nodded and sighed. She recalled the picture of Tim the Horsehead that covered the safe, and wondered if the thief felt even a hint of fear as he swung back the portrait to reveal the locked safe.

Probably not, she decided. After all, Tim the Horsehead was long dead and long gone, and the current mage in Tirlin was Meralda Ovis. Daughter of a prominent family of swine herders and sausage makers. First in her class of bespectacled, serious young men who were more banker than mage.

She halted in her pacing, facing Mug and looking past him and the mirror into the ranks and rows of magics stored and twinkling in the shadows. Was each glittering trinket perhaps the life’s work of a mage?

Mage. I wonder,she thought. Has the title lost all meaning?Since Tim’s time, how many names had risen above the rest, to be remembered forever as mighty wielders of magic?

None,thought Meralda. None, and neither shall my name be remembered, unless it is as a footnote on first year midterms.She could almost see the question written, almost see the frowns it raised. Who was the first woman to wear the robe? And some would know and scribble “Meralda Ovis” and some would shrug and guess and that would be the end of it, the end of her, the end of Mage Meralda.

She thought back to college, remembered how many of those somber young faces were bound for the guilds, and happy to be so. “Forget that court nonsense,” she’d heard one of them snicker at her back during commencement. “Let her have mage. I’ll take a Master’s robe from a guild, any day, and be glad of it, too.”

Meralda looked away from the ranks of cabinets.

“Now just you wait a moment, Miss Ovis,” said Mug. “I see those big moon-eyes getting all misty because you didn’t conjure up the Tears and throw them at the copperheads,” he said. “It’s just like college all over again. You set impossible goals, and then act surprised when you can’t achieve them.”

Meralda sighed. “Mug,” she said.

“Don’t ‘Mug’ me,” replied Mug. “I’m right, and you know it. I’ll tell you something, mistress,” he said. “I studied history right along with you. I’ve heard all the stories. I’ve read all the old books. I believe your hero Tim the Horsehead made things up as he went along, took a lot of wild chances, and had a lot of wild strokes of wholly undeserved, utterly blind, plain dumb luck. I think you are already his equal, if not his superior, in spell shaping and use of Sight, and I know you’re a lot better at mathematics, because Tim’s staff did all his math and his writings are full of errors after the staff was broken at Romare.” Mug paused, rolled a long leaf into a finger-like tube, and shook it gently at Meralda. “So stop berating yourself for not being Tim, Mage Ovis. We don’t need Tim anymore. We need Meralda.”

The faint sound of applause rose up behind Mug, and he made a mocking bow toward the sound.

Meralda realized her fists were clenched at her sides. She took a breath, relaxed her hands and her jaw, and forced a smile. “Thank you,” she said.

Mug blinked at her. “You’re welcome,” he said. His voice softened. “I meant all that, by the way.”

“I know you did,” said Meralda. She walked to her chair, pulled it back, and sat. “So,” she said, licking her lips and pausing a bit when she realized her voice was shaking. “When our history is written, what will it claim we did next?”

Mug considered this. “Well,” he said, slowly. “When confronted by knotty dilemmas, most wizards turn to relics and whatnots,” he said. He turned his eyes upon Goboy’s scrying mirror, through which the last rays of the sun still streamed. “Shall I?”

Meralda sighed in exasperation. “You know full well it’s a waste of time,” she said, patting the mirror frame when the glass flashed at her words. “Not that our friend here isn’t a wondrous and useful work,” she added, hastily, “but the glass can only display images of actions taking place in the present.” And since all of those tend to be images of bedrooms or bathhouses,she thought, the mirror tells us more about Mage Goboy’s favored entertainments than it ever has about anything else.

“Well, then, let’s ask it about the present,” said Mug.

Meralda frowned. The mirror could reflect some things, well enough. Ask it for the sky, or the clouds, or Tirlin from high in the air, and one could expect several hours of reflection before the image broke apart. But ask for anything smaller than the sky, a room, for instance, or a person, and the mirror would flash an instant’s reflection on the glass, and then begin its random perambulation through the more private parts of Tirlin. Meralda’s early investigations of Goboy’s mirror had resulted mainly in a good deal of embarrassment and ultimately the blanket.

“Mirror, mirror,” said Mug, before Meralda could stop him.

The sky and the faint sun vanished, replaced by reflections of Mug and Meralda and a single glowing spark lamp on the ceiling.

Meralda looked at her reflection, and looked away when it winked back at her.

“Show me the Tears,” said Mug, in the king’s own voice. “Show me the Tears, wherever they are.”

The mirror flashed bright white, casting brief shadows on Meralda’s desk. Startled, Meralda looked up at the glass, but it was dark.

Dark, but not black. Indeed, a dim light flickered at the right edge of the glass, halfway up the frame.

“I’ll be trimmed and pruned,” said Mug.

The image grew lighter and clearer. The flickering light became the guttering stub of a candle, burnt down nearly to nothing. Its four fellows were gone, mere lumps that neither smoked nor glowed.

The candle stand sat on a plain wood table. A chair was pushed beneath it. And on the wall adjacent to the table, faint but visible in the failing candlelight, Tim the Horsehead grinned out of a painting.

Meralda rose, eyes wide, biting back an exclamation.

“That’s the safe room, isn’t it?” whispered Mug.

Meralda nodded, brought a finger to her lips. Mug nodded with a tossing of leaves and fell silent.

Meralda sought out Opp’s Rotary Timekeeper and watched the rings whirl round. Ten, twenty, thirty full seconds, and still the image in the mirror held.

The safe room. Meralda let out her breath, afraid to move or speak or even look away.

“Show me the Tears, wherever they are,” Mug had said.

And now we see the safe room?

Meralda rose, banged her right knee on the desk leg, shoved her chair sharply backward, and bit back a shout.

“Mistress?” said Mug, who turned half his eyes upon her, but left the other aimed motionless at the glass.

“The Tears,” said Meralda. “You asked…oh, blast, the nature of your question was such that the object in question would have its whereabouts revealed,” she said, wary of using words the mirror might interpret as a new command. “Think about it, Mug. Imagine you’re a villain. You want to cause trouble. You put a spell on the safe, or the jewel box, and you make it look as if the Tears have been stolen.”

Mug tapped the glass with a leaf. “But you hide the Tears, instead,” he said. “Somehow. Hide them in the safe room.”

“And then you just wait,” said Meralda. She stepped closer to the glass. “You just wait, because sooner or later, the Alons will be gone,” she said. “And sooner or later, Yvin will remove the guards from the safe room. Oh, he might also bar it and lock it, but given time, you can get in. And if not? Well, the damage is done.”

Meralda stared into the glass. I’m right,she thought, smiling at the guttering candle, shifting her gaze to the ghostly equine smile of the Horsehead in the portrait. I’m right.

Mug blinked with fifteen eyes. “It sounds plausible,” he said. He blinked again. “I can’t find anything wrong with it.” He paused. “Except, of course, for the mirror’s sudden spate of competence.”

Meralda felt her smile shrink, just a bit.

“Odd,” she said. “Though not undocumented. Remember the missing princes, back in 1810?”

“I thought you said that Mage Lommis made that story up, to implicate the Vonats,” said Mug.

“I may have been wrong about that,” said Meralda. She reached out and touched the dark oak frame. “I may have been wrong about a lot of things.”

Mug shrugged. “Glasses showing rooms, mages admitting errors. This is a night for rare occurrences,” he said. He thrust an eye toward Meralda. “That aside, what now?”

Meralda turned from the glass to Mug. “It’s time someone else had a very bad day,” she said, and she smiled. At the sight of it Mug pulled his eye hastily back.

“Oh, my,” said Mug.

In the glass, the candle guttered and went out.

Midnight. Meralda yawned and stretched. Mug muttered in his sleep, and Tervis rose from his chair and stood.

The scene in Goboy’s mirror was dark, aside from the faint line of light that crept in from under the safe room door.

“Shut up, you awful hyacinth,” said Mug.

“Ma’am?” said Tervis.

“He’s dreaming,” said Meralda. “Ignore him.” She reached up and stroked the topmost of his leaves.

“Never thought about plants dreaming,” said Tervis. Then he yawned. “But I reckon they get tired; too.”

“Don’t we all,” said Meralda.

Tervis muttered assent, and sat again.

The mirror remained dark. Meralda had sent for the captain, told him of her suspicions, then asked that a contingent of guards be kept ready just beyond the Alon halls. She’d refused the captain’s offer of additional guards to watch the mirror, deciding there was simply too much potential for mischief in the lab. Or,Meralda wondered, is it that I, like Fromarch and all the mages before us, simply don’t want strangers in my lair?

Meralda smiled at the thought. Next I’ll be slouching around in old robes and muttering to myself in public,she thought.

“Hedge-bush,” said Mug, and Tervis chuckled.

Meralda bit back another yawn and idly shoved her now-cold cup of coffee around on her desk. She was beginning to question the wisdom of insisting that she keep her own watch on the mirror, instead of assigning Kervis and Tervis to watch it in shifts.

But here I sit,she thought, half-asleep and bone weary. I can’t just go home and lie down. Not yet.

She lifted the coffee cup, took a sip, made a face, and put it down.

Sometime during her first hour of watching the mirror, she’d decided that one of the rival Alon wizards was probably the culprit. If so, he’d also be the one to recover the Tears. Meralda’s hope was she could find them first.

And then she’d begun to think about how the Tears were hidden, and she’d decided the Alon mages were, if the captain and Shingvere were correct, simply not up to the task.

Arcane concealment of the Tears, which would mean visual and tactile suppression of form and mass, was not something she’d like to try, she decided. If Red Mawb or Dorn Mukirk cast such a spell, there was more to Alon clan wizards than the college ever taught.

Mug shook his leaves, and Meralda yawned again.

“You’ll have the Tears in hand by tomorrow night, I’ll wager,” said Tervis.

“I wish I shared your confidence,” replied Meralda. “But I hardly know where to begin looking.”

Tervis nodded and smiled. “You’ll know when the time comes.”

“She can’t know of this,” mumbled Mug, in Shingvere’s merry voice. Meralda smiled and patted Mug’s pot. “Poor thing,” she said. “You’ll have to go outside tomorrow, get some real sunlight.”

Tomorrow. She looked to the clock and saw that sunrise was only five hours away.

Night is fled, and with her slumber,thought Meralda. Phendelit playwrights must lose as much sleep as Tirlish thaumaturges.